Modern data centers can have a huge number of individual computing servers, with some larger data centers having tens of thousands of computing servers or even more. The equipment in these data centers is often logically arranged and managed hierarchically. For example, there could be multiple sites, a single site could include multiple rooms, each room could include multiple rows, and each row could include multiple computing servers. Power constraints may exist at each level of the hierarchy, such as when each row can draw up to a first threshold amount of power, each room can draw up to a second threshold amount of power, and the site can draw up to a third threshold amount of power.
At times of high customer demand, a data center may wish to maximize computing usage and thus power usage while still avoiding constraint violations in order to protect its equipment. However, modern data centers and servers are becoming more and more complex. As a result, it is becoming more and more difficult to effectively manage the power consumption of a modern data center to ensure that power constraints are followed. The failure to properly follow a power constraint could result in damage to servers or other equipment in the data center.